NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Current and former smokers incur
higher healthcare costs after having surgery than non-smokers,
according to a new study.

"Smoking causes an estimated $17 billion in excess
healthcare costs each year just because it is more expensive to
take care of these folks in the first year after surgeries," Dr.
David Warner told Reuters Health by email. He led the new study
at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Warner said helping surgery patients quit smoking benefits
not only their post-operation outcomes but also their long-term
health.

"Clinicians who care for surgical patients have the
opportunity and responsibility to help their patients quit
smoking," he said.

For their study, Warner and his colleagues used records from
adults who had inpatient surgery at Mayo Clinic hospitals in
2008 and 2009.

The researchers matched 678 current smokers with an equal
number of "never smokers" based on their age, gender, type of
surgery and insurance. They also matched 945 pairs of former
smokers and never smokers.

Costs of the original surgeries and hospital stays were
similar for everyone, according to findings published in JAMA
Surgery.

But compared to never smokers, healthcare costs for current
smokers were higher during the year following surgery - by about
$400 per month. Likewise, treating former smokers cost about
$273 more per month than treating never smokers.

Warner's team found smokers required more frequent visits to
the emergency room and more hospitalizations during that year.

"This is another example of how smoking has real costs to
our society - costs that we all bear - and yet another reason
that both public policy and clinical practice needs to focus on
preventing and treating addiction to nicotine," Warner said.

Many of the former smokers in the study had only quit
smoking after becoming seriously ill.

"Although quitting smoking dramatically improves health, not
all of the damage can be reversed (for example, lung disease),
and these tobacco-related diseases may still increase risks and
costs," Warner said.

"The other thing to note is that when comparing current and
former smokers, the former smokers were older, sicker, and
needed more extensive operation - indeed, the older and sicker
you are, the more likely you are to quit," he said.

The patients in this study were less diverse and more
affluent than Americans as a whole, the researchers noted. So
the effect of smoking on post-surgery costs could be different
in other parts of the country where people have different access
to healthcare.

"This study suggests that if we want to cut our healthcare
costs, we should support smokers who want to quit by funding
cessation services," Holly Jarman told Reuters Health in an
email.

Jarman studies markets and health policy at the University
of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor. She was not
involved in the new study.

"In addition to the health benefits of not smoking, the
study suggests that prevention is better than cure when it comes
to healthcare costs," she said.

Jarman also said the study highlights the importance of
preventing young people from taking up smoking in the first
place.

"Adolescents are particularly sensitive to the addictive
properties of nicotine. Yet, if people make it through those
vulnerable years without starting to smoke, we know that they
are much less likely to ever smoke," she said.